New feature alert: Automatic updates to control linkages

Earlier this year, 6clicks released the Compliance Gap Assessment feature which enables users to quickly understand the changes to a standard, framework, or regulation document (authority documents in 6clicks speak) and identify their level of compliance with the new version. To supplement this capability, we now introduce automatic updates to control linkages, empowering users to automatically link their controls to compliance requirements as they change. Read on to learn all about this latest advancement in 6clicks’ Controls & Compliance module:

How do automatic updates to control linkages work?

The 6clicks platform offers an integrated solution for managing your internal controls and external compliance requirements.

First, the public Content Library is where you can easily download the most widely used standards and regulatory frameworks such as the Australian ISM, DORA by the EU, ISO 27001, and NIST CSF. Upon downloading, these authority documents or authorities are automatically added to your Exclusive Content Library, which allows you to tailor the content that will be available to your teams, business units, or entities through the Hub & Spoke model.

Meanwhile, the Controls module is where you can set up and organize your control sets and assign control tasks or ownership to team members.

It is also where you can link individual controls to authorities stored in your Exclusive Content Library. Hailey, 6clicks’ AI engine, can automate this process through its Compliance Mapping feature, enabling you to instantly identify the overlaps between two authorities or quickly link controls to specific compliance requirements (provisions in 6clicks speak) within an authority. Authorities linked to a control are displayed under Linked Data.

Now, when downloading an updated version of an authority from the Content Library, users can view changelogs or a summary of changes between the new and previous versions of the authority through the version comparison component of the Compliance Gap Assessment feature. This enables users to easily determine which provisions are unchanged, updated, removed, and completely new:

Now, with automatic updates to control linkages, controls linked to a previous version of an authority will automatically be linked to the new version of the authority once it’s added to your team’s Exclusive Content Library, given that the provisions from the two versions remain unchanged. In our example below, the selected control is now linked to the same provision in both the ISM March 2024 version and the December 2023 version:

This feature not only eliminates the need to manually link controls to new versions of authorities but also helps streamline assessments. When you perform a requirement-based assessment (RBA) against an authority, let’s say the ISM March 2024 version, the newly linked controls will also automatically be part of the data or evidence for that assessment, making way for more efficient assessments.

What are the benefits of this new feature?

Automatic updates to control linkages provide several improvements for control and compliance management within the 6clicks platform:

• Automatic control linking to similar provisions – When a new version of an authority is available, existing controls are automatically linked to the provisions that match those in the previous version.

• Enhanced compliance visibility – Users can access control linkages within the Linked Data section of each control or within the response details of a requirement-based assessment.

• Automatic control delinking – Once an authority is deleted, linked controls are automatically unlinked to maintain data integrity.

By automatically updating control linkages to new authority versions, organizations can fast-track the lengthy process of analyzing compliance requirements and checking their internal controls, allowing them to promptly adjust their compliance status and maintain compliance with consistently evolving standards and regulations.

Enhance compliance management with 6clicks

Leverage integrated compliance management and audit and assessment functionalities, AI-powered compliance mapping, automatic updates to compliance requirements and control linkages, and other powerful capabilities through the 6clicks platform.